Civility, Collegiality, and Supreme Court Seating Arrangements

Yesterday on SCOTUSblog Andrew Hamm pointed out a great new article in the March 2018 issue of the Journal of Supreme Court History. The article is called “Chief Justice Burger and the Bench: How Physically Changing the Shape of the Court’s Bench Reduced Interruptions during Oral Argument” and the authors are the political scientists Ryan C. Black,  Timothy R. Johnson,  and Ryan J. Owens. In a fascinating empirical study of the Supreme Court, Black, Johnson, and Owens show how the adoption of a curved bench in 1972 reduced the frequency with which the justices interrupt each other during oral argument. Prior to 1972 the justices sat on a long, straight bench that made it difficult for them to see one another during oral argument. Unable to make eye contact, they frequently interrupted and talked over each other, creating a cacophony of voices that undermined the quality of oral argument. By the fall of 1971, Chief Justice Warren Burger had…

Read more detail on Recent Law Professor posts –

This entry was posted in Law Professors and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply